'How Is your Haircut?'

One week from today is Christmas day, which is about as surreal a thought as I can conjure in this balmy, blue-sky, sunshine environment. It really is very peculiar to see Christmas decorations hanging up around the streets. Tinsel in sunshine just doesn't work.

I ran out this morning to get a haircut as I'm getting very woolly and it was driving me crazy. It took a little work to find a place at short notice but I did manage, after phoning round a few places. On arrival I sat in the chair and a young woman launched into me with a pair of clippers. Confidence didn€™t feel terribly high (neither mine nor hers) and I began to suspect I'd live to regret this moment. Twenty minutes later she was done, leaving me with an undulating thatch up top in something of a teddy-bear-ear aesthetic. Hey ho. On leaving I paid the cashier who asked, "how is your haircut, sir?", "oh fine," I lied. "Great!" she says, "today is her first day and she was SO nervous!" I smiled and left a tip. Everybody's got to start somewhere, I suppose...

This week, Perth is all about cricket as the Ashes test (second test, maybe?) is on here. The place is rammed with English persons, most of whom are large men ingesting copious quantities of ale whilst sporting hats, shirts, etc., bearing legends such as "Barmy Army in Oz" and the like. Makes a man proud to be British. Bono wanted to say something about the cricket during the show and as he is possibly the only person in the building with a scanter knowledge of things cricket than my own, I went out to do some research. Several of my lighting crew are English (and indeed would fit the above description, now that I come to think about it) so I cornered them, along with Raff our resident Aussie cricket-o-phile. We talked it over and they came up with some names and jokes none of which meant the slightest thing to me. It was quite weird and rather wonderful to suddenly find myself in an entirely alien culture. One of them would say a name and the others would all fall about laughing, whilst I would say, "so... tell me about this person..." The only yardstick to judge the research by was the audience reaction to Bono's chat, which he put together from the information gleaned. They loved it, even starting a chant at one point, whilst I was still left not having the slightest idea what any of it was about.

After the show the steel crew held a spontaneous party by the upstage left foot of the stage structure. The 'Green Steel' system is at this show, which includes some fun characters (most Flemmish, as ever) including Hendrick who thoughtfully showed up with a huge vat of Mojitos. People gathered beneath the structure, beers arrived, tunes played. This was the 360 office party and a good time was had by all, despite my spending much of the evening fending off comments along the lines of "what the hell happened to your head...?"

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COMMENTS

Willie, you're a hoot!
I had a feeling Bono was limiting his cricket banter to names in recent media. Did he remember phoning Alan Border at the Brisbane Zoo Tv concert?
Calling Adam the band's Shane Warne prompted me to write a sign `Text Me Adam!' for the 2nd Perth concert. Not quite sure if Adam understood Warnie's reputation with texting. It was more of an inside joke with my fellow U2 nutters.
Thanks Willie, I wish I'd met you this tour.

dkborsos

24 December, 2010

why I subscribe to U2.com

Forget the ticket presales. Forget the exclusive audio and video. Willie's Diaries are the best reason to subscribe to U2.com.
NIce haircut, guy.

milehighmofo

24 December, 2010

Too funny

Willie, you CRACK me up.
Merry Christmas!
BTW: It was awfully nice of you to leave a tip.

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Within the bands entourage (certainly by comparison to the crews clockwork scheduling) travel departure times are often a little loose. This morning was especially so, due to three contradictory memos which had been emailed out last night and this morning.

There was a 6.30pm conference call arranged between Bono (Dublin), The Edge (Los Angeles), Steve Matthews (London) and myself (also London) to blow the cobwebs off our brains and discuss the reincarnation of the Vertigo Tour.

I was planning on resurrecting the tour diary today, being the day we were scheduled to fly to Auckland for the load-in tomorrow. However, its now old news that the remainder of the tour dates have been postponed, so Im not going anywhere further than the corner cafe. Its been a very weird week indeed - much akin to driving into a wall.